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Out With The Old And In The With The New
If the name Shannon McCarthy sounds familiar to you, congratulate yourself. You’re obviously a person with discerning taste or someone with a great many back issues of Real Detroit in the trunk of your car. A sharp observer of the local music scene — Shannon helmed a desk here back in the day. She moved on to several other projects and her current one, Spring Fling, is set for April 4 at the Loving Touch in Ferndale. Shannon took a few minutes away from her murderous schedule to answer a few questions.
What is this seasonal event going to deliver?
It’s the very first arts & crafts DIY event of 2009, putting 20 artists and craftspeople together for the purpose of sharing and selling handmade goods. After the busy Christmas/Holiday craft season, there was a big gap in alternative craft fairs until summer. I wanted to create a fresh new event that really got back to the DIY community feel of the craft scene. Clearly, others felt the same void and need to shake things up a bit. I wanted to offer local artists a broader spectrum of opportunity.
You remarked in an earlier interview that the DIY Craft Art Scene has “exploded" in Detroit and elsewhere. How do you account for this?
In 2008, author and crafter Faythe Levine released a book and documentary called Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design that chronicled the so-called movement. I don’t know if anyone knows precisely how or when it got started, but the words “arts & crafts” took on a new meaning several years ago. Women in their 20s and 30s took a youthful edge to the same kind of arts & crafts done by our mothers and grandmothers, but with an edgier approach.
And what exactly is Comfortably Lovely?
Reclaimed, recycled, refashioned, relovely. Everything I make has a vintage feel. Comfortably Lovely is the name I work under. It is stamped on the back of my reworked vintage cards, notebooks and various paper goods. My mixed-media collages that have sold in art galleries, as well as stores, are also sold under that moniker. I am a thrift store, estate sale, recycling junkie.
You mentioned Michele Maule as one of your closest collaborators. Who is she?
Michele is an artist whom I met at the first DIY Street Fair in Ferndale last September. We sat across from each other for two days and became fans of each other’s work. She's originally from Portland and moving back in May. I wanted to do one last show together before she left, so I created one. | RDW
Spring Fling ... A Craft Thing • Saturday, April 4 from 12-7 p.m. • The Loving Touch
Admission Free. Please go to myspace.com/comfortablylovely for more info.
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